That’s not to say, of course, that such outrages were rare ten, or even twenty, yearsago. But now they are more plentiful – and, thanks in no small part to the growing influence of cyber-samizdat, such as YouTube, much more visible. Acts of corrupt police abuse that once could be dismissed as figments of a troubled imagination, or the invention of vindictive criminals, are now routinely exposed to worldwide public scrutiny, and the fuel of growing public outrage.

I have a suggestion: We should work to re-instate statutory protection of the right to resist unlawful arrest in the 38 states that presently do not recognize that ancient and indispensable Common Law right.

Unless a police officer is dutifully enforcing a legitimate warrant, or has unassailable probable cause to believe that an individual has committed a felony, he has no business attempting to arrest anybody. That was the understanding that prevailed in the Anglo-Saxon world, in one form or another, from 1215 until the mid-1960s to mid-1970s, at least here in the United States.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

I've seen the promos for this show but never the show itself. The woman pretty much destroyed any trust that her husband had with her in the course of answering questions like "Were you in love with someone else on your wedding day?" or "Have you had sexual relations with anyone other than your husband since you've been married?" but the twist at the end is great.

In case you haven't been paying attention for the last 9 months, the economy is in a shambles. The dollar continues its decline. The "core inflation" rate (a figure of dubious value since it's calculated by EXCLUDING non-essential items like say food and energy) is even showing an uptick of .4 percent. Which is actually a rather large number for that particular measurement since it's the largest increase in 11 months AND double what analysts were expecting.

Now we are starting to see the consequences of the "guns and butter" policy. We are in the midst of an economic meltdown that could take a decade to recover from unless we start cutting government spending and interference in peoples lives.

I'm going to keep hammering this until I'm blue in the face. IT'S ALL THE FAULT OF GOVERNMENT. IF YOU WANT TO END THIS BOOM/BUST CYCLE GET RID OF THE FED. BY DOING THAT A SIDE BENEFIT WILL BE SMALLER, CONSTITUTIONALLY SIZED GOVERNMENT.

At first glance, Bluefields in Nicaragua looks like any other rum-soaked, Rastafarian-packed, hammock-infested Caribbean paradise. But Bluefields has a secret.

People here don't have to work. Every week, sometimes every day, 35kg sacks of cocaine drift in from the sea. The economy of this entire town of 50,000 tranquil souls is addicted to cocaine.

Bluefields is a creation of the gods of geography. Located halfway between the cocaine labs of Colombia and the 300 million noses of the United States, Bluefields is ground zero for cocaine transportation. Nicaraguan waters are near Colombian territorial limits, making the area extremely popular with cocaine smugglers using very small, very fast fishing boats.

When our Navy or Coast Guard starts tracking these small boats, the cocaine smugglers end up dumping their loads overboard. Where do those wash up? On the beaches at Bluefields.

There is no oversight from the central government and the local population governs themselves. But this is the best part:

With literally tonnes of cocaine buried in the hills, stashed in yards and piled up around town, why doesn't the Colombian mafia storm into these remote communities and repossess their coke bales by coercion or brute force?

"Hell no," says Peter, a local businessman. "The Miskito [local Indians] are guerrillas. They have been through war. They have AK-47s and up."

This is an unintended consequence of the drug war because our strategy in fighting it artificially inflates the price of cocaine. If all drugs were decriminalized, there wouldn't be any incentive for the cartels to exist at all. But then this anarchist paradise wouldn't exist at all either.

Monday, February 25, 2008

The government of Liechtenstein on Wednesday detailed plans to strengthen privacy guarantees for the investment vehicles at the center of a tax evasion scandal in Germany, a move that might prevent this tiny Alpine country from exiting a short black-list of international tax havens.

But wait, it gets awesomer:

Liechtenstein maintains that whether Germans or other foreigners with Liechtenstein-based bank accounts or foundations pay their taxes is none of its business. Klaus Tschütscher, the Liechtenstein justice minister, said foundations should not be tarred with a bad reputation just because some Germans might have set them up in order to avoid taxes, saying that was a separate matter.

"The Germans say, "Take this product off the market because some Germans may be using it wrongly," Tschütscher said at a news conference in Vaduz, the capital. "If someone puts their money in a mattress to avoid paying taxes, I can't say, 'You have to stop making mattresses.' "

It's the equivalent of the "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument. Good for them, at least some common sense is prevailing in Europe. Now if we can bring some of that back to this country we'll be all right. (Thanks to Montana for keeping hope alive here.)

They take the 2nd Amendment seriously out in Montana, unlike out here in LaLa land:

Montana officials are warning that if the Supreme Court rules in the D.C. gun ban case that the right to keep and bear arms protects only state-run militias like the National Guard, then the federal government will have breached Montana's statehood contract.

Can you imagine if the SCOTUS decided (though I can't see how) that the right to keep and bear arms was decided as a collective instead of an individual right? Would Montana secede? Would the feds let them go that easily?

...That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness...

I would love someone to ask John McCain his opinion on this.

"Senator McCain, what would be your response if Montana decided that their interests weren't being served by the federal government because the Supreme Court decided that the 2nd Amendment is a collective right? They also agreed to join the Union contingent upon the understanding that it is an individual right, your response?"

I don't know when the decision is going to be handed down, but oral arguments for the case DC vs. Heller are scheduled for next month.

An in depth look at John McCain and his problem with the FEC from the Center for Competitive Politics. This is probably the best rundown of McCain's run in with McCain-Feingold. In fact, it's probably more than you would ever want to know about it.

Tarsem Singh (The Cell) directed this movie called "The Fall" which was made a few years ago and nobody watched it. Spike Jonze and David Fincher are re-releasing it. If the movie is anything like the trailer, it should have gotten more recognition the first time around. Anyway, click over to FilmDrunk to watch it. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

William Grigg over at Pro Libertate provides a great perspective on who the real criminals are when it comes to the government versus the private sector:

Klaus Zumwinkel, former CEO of Deutsche Post -- the German postal service and parent of the DHL parcel delivery company -- lost his job last week. He may soon go to prison. His "crime" was to protect his legitimately earned wealth from the omnivorous socialist bureaucracy that afflicts Germany. He did so by opening a foundation in neighboring Lichtenstein, where his earnings were protected by the banking secrecy laws of that tiny (pop. circa 35,000) but heroic principality.

During his tenure as head of Deutsche Post, concedes the New York Times, Zumwinkel "helped transform [the postal service] ... from a stodgy state bureaucracy into a publicly listed logistics and freight-delivery powerhouse...."

Despite operating within a thoroughly socialized business environment, Zumwinkel -- through the tenacious application of his considerable gifts -- added a great deal more wealth to his society than what he earned. Yet he is now being traduced by the German State as an enemy of society for the supposed crime of tax evasion. Even if he avoids prison, he won't get his severance.

With the serene confidence conferred by the knowledge that the taxpayers would absorb any losses, IKB invested huge sums in the sub-prime mortgage market here in the United States. As he did so, Ortseifen consciously defrauded investors, depositors, and the German public by assuring them that "uncertainties in the American mortgage market" would have "practically no effect" on the health of IKB's investments.

Let it not be said that people weren't paying attention. This is a story from the San Francisco Chronicle:

U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Venice (Los Angeles County) has come up with a new way to expand the domestic "war on terror." Her Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (HR1955), which passed the House by the lopsided vote of 404-6, would set up a commission to "examine and report upon the facts and causes" of so-called violent radicalism and extremist ideology, then make legislative recommendations on combatting it.

According to commentary in the Baltimore Sun, Rep. Harman and her colleagues from both sides of the aisle believe the country faces a native brand of terrorism, and needs a commission with sweeping investigative power to combat it

We need a commission to study why people think the government sucks? How about they take too much of our money, do a crappy job, and are only looking out for themselves? No Representative Harman, the problem isn't us, it's you.

In the next paragraph, (in case you can't see where this is heading) there is a list of groups who "might" (or will) be targeted for investigation:

A clue as to where Harman's commission might be aiming is the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a law that labels those who "engage in sit-ins, civil disobedience, trespass, or any other crime in the name of animal rights" as terrorists. Other groups in the crosshairs could be anti-abortion protesters, anti-tax agitators, immigration activists, environmentalists, peace demonstrators, Second Amendment rights supporters ... the list goes on and on. According to author Naomi Wolf, the National Counterterrorism Center holds the names of roughly 775,000 "terror suspects" with the number increasing by 20,000 per month.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

During a town hall meeting in Muskogee, Oklahoma this past weekend, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) admitted that it was “a mistake” for the United States to invade Iraq in 2003. “I will tell you personally that I think it was probably a mistake going to Iraq,” Coburn told the crowd.

I have a feeling he's going to have to issue a clarification sooner or later because all of the warmongers who support him are probably going to have a hissy fit.

Maxed Out Momma reporting on the story of, gasp!, Bankers lobbying Congress for a bailout.

It turns out that Bank of America has a nice little plan to solve the mortgage mess, which they have been submitting to your Congress Critters while y'all have been out there working to pay your mortgages. BofA, of course, has the little problem of the CW loans it just bought to deal with, and Congress Critters are relatively cheap in comparison to deeply underwater loans.

I say we let the banks just eat the writedowns and while we're at it, we get rid of the FED as well. But that's just me and a certain OB/GYN who happens to be running for president.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

This story is wayyyy better than the NYT smear piece. Oh, and the irony so very very sweet:

John McCain had taken out (a loan), in which he tried to use his future eligibility for federal matching funds as collateral. Presumably, he did this in order to get the money he needed to keep his campaign afloat without using the matching finds themselves as collateral. And the reason it was important not to use those funds as collateral was that according to the FEC, doing so would constitute "accepting " those funds, and thus subjecting himself and his campaign to the limitations that go with it.

So the campaign finance legislation that bears his name (McCain-Feingold) could also be the law that limits the amount of money that he can spend to win the presidency. I'm going to fire off a letter to the FEC right now.

Christina Aguilera recently had her first child and as a result her boobs are gianormous. I'm not really a breast man as it is and huge fake boobs really don't do anything for me . But they apparently do something to talk show host Ellen Degeneres.

edit: I will concede that I've had whole conversations with women wearing low cut tops like this and they could have a face like the Lochness Monster and I wouldn't know. So maybe boobs do a little something for me, but I'm primarily a butt man. Anyway:

I would love to see a Barack Obama vs. Ron Paul debate. To have both of them go head to head and present their ideas about the course that this country should take. Take an unabashed liberal, the most liberal Senator in the country and put him up against the most conservative Congressman in the country. THAT would be great, THAT would be a true battle of ideas.

California, which once lured Americans from near and far, is now driving out millions of the most productive residents – including high percentages of the most affluent.

"When California faced a Mount Everest-sized $14 billion deficit in 2003, one of the major causes for the red ink was the stampede of millionaire households from the state," says a report called "Rich States, Poor States" by economists Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore. "Out of the 25,000 or so seven-figure-income families, more than 5,000 left in the early 2000s, and the loss of their tax payments accounted for about half the budget hole."

Is it possible that California is going to end up like the rust belt but with better weather and better Mexican food?CMStrapz and I were at the San Diego Convention center when Arnold launched his campaign after the Gray Davis recall (my personal favorites were Tom McClintock, or that porn star, or Gary Coleman, but mostly Tom McClintock). Arnold really is impressive as a political figure, but he has had a tough time trying to cut government spending. Partly because of the political climate out here, but also because he hasn't really been pounding away with cutting costs as part of his agenda.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

The German government has had to bail out state-owned banks with taxpayers' money after their managements recklessly gambled away billions on subprime investments. But if a state-owned bank were to go under, the consequences could be disastrous for the whole economy.

But wait there's more further down:

...after investing billions in the high-risk US subprime mortgage sector, insisted that the "uncertainties in the American mortgage market" would have "practically no effect" on IKB's investments. A few days later, IKB was on the verge of bankruptcy, with its supposed wonderful US investments worth little more than the paper it was printed on.

Now keep in mind, this is a bank owned by the German government, so all of the taxpayers are on the hook for these losses. Isn't that grand? Read the whole article here.

When the banking crisis comes here who are we going to blame? That's right, the government. Kill the Fed.

This is a great discussion about the worthlessness of government antitrust laws and stars Dr. Domenick Armentano and Dr. Ron Paul. Also making an appearance are Members Only jackets and feathered big hair.

Here's a great article about one solution for providing cheap, effective, healthcare:

Retail clinics are good for American healthcare. By giving doctors a run for their money, they force us to do something we don't do well: innovate. At their best, retail clinics can make doctors look like smart entrepreneurs instead of a self-interest group futilely trying to protect archaic ways of doing business.

To understand why that's the case, look at the business-as-usual model of medicine. Anybody who wants to run a competent medical practice -- from the country doctor to the tertiary care hospital -- must measure success in terms of access, quality and cost. It's safe to say traditional medical practice is struggling to succeed here. Access is unpredictable for almost any practice. Most of us simply don't have the ability to provide round-the-clock care, short of the mediocre phone service of an on-call doctor or the chaotic, overcrowded emergency room. Costs keep rising and being shifted to consumers in the form of higher premiums, deductibles and co-pays.

What I find interesting is that, once again, it's a special interest group (doctors) who look towards government to mandate elimination of competition. We see this all the time in industries as varied as politics (yeah it's an industry, look at all the douchebags who spend their "career" in public service), construction, telecoms, and in this case, medicine. The problem is that because we have let the government so large and allow them to interfere in the free market so much. We don't even recognize what a truly "free-market" is.

Fidel Castro is stepping down from his post as President of Cuba. Good riddance, I'm glad to see that our trade embargo was so effective in helping accelerate his inevitable downfall. It only took 50 years. We really showed him.

Over at Lew Rockwell, Bill Walker writes about why computers get better, cheaper, faster, and more advanced in this country while healthcare does not:

Computers work. We complain about them, but that’s because most of the time they work so fast that we don’t even notice them in the background. And they get cheaper by the second. They get cheaper so fast that we can see the prices of memory and processor speed falling even without adjusting for inflation.

Health care, on the other hand, gets more expensive all the time, even for techniques that were invented decades ago. Computers get twice as fast every two years, but technology for carbon-based organisms improves at a snail’s pace.Why? Biology isn’t all that complex. After all, our cells only have the equivalent of about 2.8 gigabytes of (very slow) DNA memory storage. The viruses that kill us often get by with 12 kilobytes. Your cellphone has more memory than most pathogens, and cellphone design mutates more over the course of a year than the flu.

Everyone repeat after me: The main reason that healthcare isn't getting cheaper and better is because of the the government.

It's frustrating to see the politicians on the GOP side of the aisle mouthing the words about the freemarket and how it's superior to government intervention in providing healthcare but not really believing it themselves. The expansion of Medicare by the Bush administration is a $29.7 TRILLION dollar albatross that should be hung around the neck of W and a complicit Congress. That "compassionate capitalism" sure sounds like big government welfare to me.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Film director Michael Bay returns to his roots and makes a commercial for the fiber optic internet service Verizon Fios, which, based on the buzz, is pretty awesome. This did make me laugh a little, but I am surprised he didn't put any slow motion of people running away from the explosions.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

To tell you the truth, I didn't even watch the latest offering from Liv (my internet connection is slow right now), but I thought I'd throw it up here because she's in a bathtub with another chick. Happy Valentines Day? More like Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday all rolled into one. (I'd say based on Liv's other work, this one is probably PG-13):

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Through trial and error Natalie discovered that she can keep down the Tic Tacs and that they help stave off the sensation of hunger.

Natalie said: “They do give me a bit of energy, but I eat them mostly to get rid of hunger. It is psychological.”

She discovered she could keep the Tic Tacs down by experimenting with mints at home. Natalie, of Maidstone, Kent, said: “When they started to come back up, I started reducing the size. I went from Trebor Extra Strong Mints to Polos and ended up with Tic Tacs.”

She sounds like my dreamgirl! She's going to stay skinny her whole life, she's a cheap date (dinner is like eating for one!), and it's obvious she has self-esteem issues. What? She's 17? Awww, that's way too old for me. Sorry honey, this ship has sailed!

Of course, the inquisitors are actually getting both men for the non-crime of allegedly fibbing to a fed. I know that poor Clemens can't do it, but when one of the creeps kept reminding him he was "under oath," I wanted him to respond, "Yes, unlike you."

Which does bring up a good point, cops and prosecuters lie all the time to get indictments, to "catch" people for crimes, or non-crimes (see the Duke Lacrosse Players). But what consequences do "the authorities" face when they are the ones engaged in criminal acts? In the case of the Duke Lacrosse DA Mike Nifong (the most egregious and publicized example), I haven't seen criminal charges filed yet. And it's unlikely that we ever will.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

You want smaller government? You want accountable government? Tired of working half the year for the bureaucratic class? The fight starts right at the point that the government takes your property from you. If that branch of the government isn't accountable to anyone why should any other branch be accountable to you? They already have what they want.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is flouting three court orders requiring it to regularly provide a nationally recognized researcher with the statistical data she needs for her studies, according to a court action brought today by the researcher.

When the Washington GOP stopped the vote of caucus results at 87% and declared John McCain the winner, the action seemed premature. John McCain and Mike Huckabee were separated by less than 2% with Ron Paul right behind both of them. Well over at the Brad Blog, it looks like they are piecing together the story:

And yes, the process overseen by the state's GOP chair Luke Esser "the Suppressor" --- where Huckabee led McCain for the bulk of the day as returns were coming in, only to stop the counting at 87% once McCain took a 242 vote lead --- was anything but transparent.

KING 5 News has determined that there are inconsistencies in the "votes" being counted and reported by the Washington State Republican party.

Throughout the vote reporting process, State Party Chairman Luke Esser has said the party is reporting the presidential preferences of the delegates who were elected at the caucuses. But today we learned that Snohomish County, the third-largest county in the state, reported the preferences of all caucus attendees instead of the elected delegates.

One Snohomish County caucus chairman told KING 5 that the delegate preferences are "dramatically different" than the attendee counts.

The Snohomish County Republican Party does not have the delegate preferences from many of its caucuses and is working to obtain them.

The rest of the piece deals with "Esser the "Suppressor" and his ties to, you never would guess it, John McCain.

He is a potent force because his ideas have deep appeal. He has, in fact, in these later stages of the primary campaign, been the only candidate of ideas. While not very presentable by modern campaigner standards, lacking as he does the cheery wit of a Huckabee, the content-free eloquence of an Obama, and the steely unprincipled ruthlessness of a Clinton or McCain, Paul has had no real competition as a promoter of ideas.

We all know, for example, that there is something horribly wrong with the way the federal government spends our money, and that whatever it is that is wrong gets wronger by the congressional session, under presidents of either party. I think we all understand, too, that the fault here is not, or not only, the stupidity or venality of our elected officials, but the dynamics of modern democracy. As David Frum explained fourteen years ago in Dead Right: “Conservatism has always been in danger of devolving from a philosophy of limited government to an ideology of middle-class self-interest … If you cannot say ‘no’ to middle-class constituents, you cannot lighten the crushing load of government upon society.”

Derbyshire goes on to address the PC rhetoric that accompanies the "racist" smear that Paul has to endure from the likes of Ace, Allahpundit, Malkin, and the rest of the Pajamas Media right.

This is the first in a series that's appearing in Taki's Top Drawer, and you can read the rest of this article here.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Talking Points Memo is all over what's going on in Washington State emphasis is mine (actually just read the whole thing it's quite tasty):

Late Update: It seems that Washington State GOP chair Luke Esser spent most of the day avoiding calls from the Huckabee campaign. And when he finally got back to them he told a lawyer for Huckabee's campaign that they'd probably count the rest of the votes some time next week. When the lawyer, Lauren Huckabee, the candidate's daughter-in-law, requested that a Huckabee lawyer be present when the remaining votes were counted, Esser hung up on her. Before the hang up, Huckabee also asked Esser about the DIY statistical analysis he did to conclude that he should call the race (Esser's expertise in statistics apparently stems from previous work as a state prosectur and a sports writer). Was there an analysis of what precincts the remaining votes came from? According to Huck campaign manager Ed Rollins, Esser admitted that he didn't which precincts the remaining votes came from.

UPDATE: Here's an email from the Washington State meetup coordinator for Ron Paul via the Ron Paul Warroom:

Hello everyone,By our very preliminary count from you reports it is looking like we have at least twice the delegates as the other candidates!!For this day and until the count shows otherwise I want you to congratulate yourselves for WINNING Washington State for Ron Paul!!I wish I could share every single story I have heard over the past few days and all the happy reports from Ron Paul enclaves in WA towns I have never even heard of!Please know this…the National Campaign is seeing these kind of successes all over the country…Every day that goes by we have new supporters and new contributers. I can’t believe I am saying this…I thought certainly I would sleep for 4 days once the 9th was over…but I am already so excited to prepare for our County Conventions!! The next few weeks are going to be very important…There were stories from almost every precinct about Huckabee and Romney voters changing their support to Ron Paul. Unfortunately some of the biggest threats to the Freedom Revolution can still come from within…our own perceptions…please read Ron’s letter again until you see the part that states he we are going to the National Convention! You know things have changed every day in this campaign with new information and new victories changing the course…now we have given him Washington and made the road to the Minneapolis a lot more golden!!I will update you all when we get more final results…You all did a wonderful job. Just wonderful.

Thank you for all you do!Maureen McMahan MooreWashington State CoordinatorRon Paul 2008425-345-4913

Fox News has learned that the Huckabee campaign has called for a “full investigation” into the Washington State Caucus results, and are sending campaign lawyers to the state to help in that pursuit. Ed Rollins, Huckabee campaign chairman, directly challenged Washington State GOP Chairman Luke Essers move in anounncing that John McCain had won the tight race with only 87.2 percent of the votes counted.

“The chairman showed very bad judgment in stopping the voting last night when announcing John McCain had won, when there was less that a 200 vote margin between the two candidates,” Rollins told Fox in an exclusive interview.” You never announce a vote, in my 40 years of politics I have never know anybody to announce a vote count before the vote is counted.”

You go Huck, rage against the machine!!

Seriously, though, what isn't being mentioned in the MSM and I'm surprised that the blogosphere hasn't picked up on it yet, is that in Washington State, the process is a wee bit quirky. Pilfered from the Daily Dose and highlighted for your convenience:

With 87% of precincts reporting, Ron Paul has won 21% of the vote in the Washington state straw poll, a strong third-place finish just a few points behind Huckabee (24%) and McCain (26%). The results from the remaining 13% of precincts may change things a little. But even when 100% of the straw poll results are counted, that won’t be the full story. What matters most are the delegates, and in several parts of the state Ron Paul has been winning more delegates than the straw poll results would suggest. We’ve seen this happen in several states: supporters of other candidates show up, vote in the straw poll, then leave — while Ron Paul supporters stay and vote in the delegate selection process. We’ve won delegates in precincts where we haven’t won the straw poll.

I do have a horse in this race still, so take this with a grain of salt. But IMO, the reason for the delay in the counting has to do more with the presence of the "uncommitted" delegates that were elected during the caucus, than the straw polling results that the MSM are reporting. That uncommitted number stands at 30 percent. From ronpaulforums (once again, caveat emptor, but it is an eyewitness account):

We won 21% (of the preference poll) in precincts where it wouldn't hurt us to be obvious for Ron Paul, or where those who showed up were likely more socially bold enough to either hold their own or build bridges. However, much of the uncommitted vote is ours because some volunteers and staff were telling them to go undeclared if they were unsure or weren't the type to haggle.

It has always been about delegates for the Paul campaign, and in this case, I think that McCain and Huck may be in for a surprise in Washington State.

Saturday, February 09, 2008

My two cents worth: banks are losing billions, and replace it with more fiat money. Citigroup and Merrill Lynch holding lion's share of market risk, while local services are slashed; Yahoo! rebounds from layoffs by buyout notice; banks are losing hundreds of billions of dollars and those in the banking industry tell us only losing $1 billion is considered a good news event!

Want to know if it's time to pull your money out of those CD's that get 5% and put them into gold and bicycles? Well don't go over to the Bank Implode-O-Meter, if your bank or credit union gets mentioned there, it's already too late.

McCain (unless he self-destructs, which isn't out of the realm of possibility) will get the GOP nod and lose to Obama/Clinton. What Mitt can do is burnish his conservative credentials over the next 4 years (and maybe replace some of that money that he spent from his personal fortune).

He could throw his support towards Dr. Paul now (since McCain pretty much has the nom locked up) and up his standing with conservatives. Since Dr. Paul isn't going to run in 2012, and the economy will be an issue at that time as well (and not terrorism). Romney could position himself to pick up the only segment of the GOP base that's growing, the libertarian Goldwater wing of the party.

Mitt is certainly more than capable as a politician and a good executive, but his credentials as a principled conservative have always been a sticking point with me. Could I vote for Mitt in 2012? He would have to reverse his position on the Iraq war, but I truly believe that it will be politically palatable 4 years from now because of the deteriorating economic situation here. People are going to be looking for places to cut government spending and the only place that is going to happen is in foreign policy.

That being said, Romney is young, (he's 60 but looks 50) and has the bankroll (and shown more than a willingness to use it) and he has shown great organizational skills. So 2012 could mark "his turn".

What Romney doesn’t have and never really established is his conservative bona fides (the same goes for Huckabee, for that matter, whose social conservatism is solid while he lacks on the economic and national security fronts). Romney won endorsements from credible sources, but the voters either didn’t warm to him personally or didn’t trust him philosophically because he hasn’t always stood on the same side of many issues. From an organizational and personnel point of view he ran a great campaign, but from an ideological and emotional point of view he never made the deal. That’s the bad news.

The good news for him is that he has a few years in which the conservative mantle is up for grabs. No one owns it or has earned it. It could be his if he chooses to earn it. Reagan changed his positions on some issues over time, so it’s not the case that an honest change of mind is permanent political poison. It’s not. But Romney has to prove that where he is now is where he will always be and that he’s a studied and worthy leader.

In a story I found out about from Conservative Belle, the City of Berkeley wants to kick Marine recruiters out of the city. The reaction from the right has been to threaten to cut off all federal funding that gets earmarked to the city. Senator Jim Demint from South Carolina is leading the charge:

This is a slap in the face to all brave service men and women and their families. The First Amendment gives the City of Berkeley the right to be idiotic, but from now on they should do it with their own money. If the city can’t show respect for the Marines that have fought, bled and died for their freedom, Berkeley should not be receiving special taxpayer funded handouts. I am currently drafting legislation to ensure that American taxpayers aren’t forced to pay for this insult by rescinding all of the earmarks for Berkeley in the Omnibus Appropriations bill, and to transfer the funds to the Marine Corps.

The Senator is right, of course, I think that Berkeley should get completely cut off. On the other hand, what if Berkeley decided to say "screw you" and eschewed the earmarks? The city should escalate it further and say that since we aren't getting any earmarks, then the residents of Berkeley shouldn't send their tax money to the Feds.

Of course, that is not going to happen. Earmarks are crack and we (and I do mean all of us) have an addiction to it. If Berkeley were to quit cold turkey, they would earn my grudging respect on breaking that bad habit.

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Has anyone, other than CNBC, reported that the DOW dropped 370 points?

Look for further inflationary rate decreases from the Fed in the coming days. You know, they could drop rates all the way down to zero percent (like Japan did back in the 90's) and it still won't help anything because government spending is going to keep going up. Bush has the audacity to ask for $3 TRILLION. Where is that money going to come from?

Monday, February 04, 2008

Thousands of men and women have come and gone here in our country's history, and except for the few, most go unnoticed and remain nameless in the pages of history, as I am sure I will be. The few who are remembered are those who were able to grab the reins of power and, for the most part, use that power to the detriment of the nation. We must remember that achieving power is never the goal sought by a truly free society. Dissipation of power is the objective of those who love liberty.

He goes on:

The most I can hope for is that someday a suggestion I've made is remembered: that the debate would shift to a different plane. Instead of asking which form of intervention and planning government should impose, perhaps someday Congress will debate intervention versus nonintervention, government versus voluntary planning, U.S. sovereignty versus internationalism – the pros and cons of true liberty.Today the debate basically is only that of deciding who will be the victims and who the beneficiaries. I hope the hours of debate over the mechanisms of the political system orchestrated by the special interests will give way to this more important debate on freedom.

The whole speech is nearly 24 years old but the problems are still the same. Read the whole thing here.

And here's the official Randolphus Maximus voter guide for the State of California. You must be registered as a Republican because it's a closed primary out here. Also, if you aren't registered as a Republican or you don't agree with my endorsements stay home. Thanks.:

Prop 92 - NO whenever I see language like "Sets community college fees at $15/unit per semester; limits future fee increases" I smell price fixing, while the fee to go to community college may be limited, the cost of going to community college is definitely not going to be limited, and who pays for that? The taxpayer.

Prop 93 - NO - I would elect someone continuously if they just left me the hell alone and kept cutting taxes and spending. But that's not what politicians believe in nowadays.

Prop 94, 95, 96, and 97 - NO - It's precisely the mismanagement of government spending that caused the budget shortfall in the first place. Let California make due with the money that it takes in now and don't let one group (the indians) have to pay for the mistakes of the government. It's a targeted tax increase, better to make everybody pissed off and let the government make hard choices and the politicians take the heat.

The devil's homo machine? Not if my collection of college coed sorority cheerleader mpegs has anything to say about it. I have so much of that stuff I almost had to delete my favorite movie of all time from my hard drive. Next to Spartacus and 300 of course.

I was out walking the precinct earlier for a certain presidential candidate and am about to sit down for the big game. For those not football inclined I offer you PuppyBowl IV on the Animal Planet channel. Here's last years (pilfered from Tammy Bruce):

Wow, I'm watching FOX recite the Declaration of Independence. Good for them.

Friday, February 01, 2008

Wesley Snipes was acquitted today on the felony charges of "tax evasion". He was however convicted of 3 misdemeanor charges of failing to file tax returns. The New York Times has the writeup here.

The whole idea of the income tax has always offended me. From the way that it picks and chooses or "targets" who has to pay and who doesn't (so much for equal protection under the law). To how invasive it is into the privacy of our citizens (you show me your tax return and I can tell you who you are). To the way that it's enforced (is there such a thing as a tax preparer industrial complex? Yes, there is, we spend as much with tax lawyers, H+R Block etc. in administering the income tax as we do in collecting it. You don't think that there's not a lobby for THAT special interest).

This country was FOUNDED on a tax rebellion. It was fashionable at one time to tar and feather the tax collectors. It is certainly true that the founding fathers never intended us to work 5 months out of the year for the government. I'm in the prime of my earning years and the only thing I see is red ink for all the promises that our government is making that it can't keep. And who are the people who are making money in this country? The people who work or have contracts with the government.

In a perverse way, I hope that we do have an economy that crashes. I hope that we have a depression and that we have inflation that runs up to 20 percent. I hope the government becomes insolvent and China decides to cash in its dollar holdings. It may be the only thing that knocks some sense into everyone and makes people realize that more government is NOT the solution. It's the problem. /rant (just kidding IRS, DHS, FBI, CIA, SEC, FEMA, and BATF)

On the key issue of foreign policy, the differences between the other Republican contenders can be measured in microdots. All remain enthusiastic supporters of the invasion of Iraq and of maintaining a presence there for years to come. All speak as if it is America’s right and duty to station its armed forces over much of the world. All have embraced neoconservative paranoia about the “threat” posed by Iran, setting the table for another war. All, that is, except Dr. Paul.

He is the one candidate who sees how the realities of world power have shifted since the 1990s, the one who recognizes that the time of unilateral American hegemony is over—and can’t be maintained even if it was in our interest to do so. He alone understands that the ever expanding federal government is a far greater threat to American liberty than some tinpot dictator in the Caucasus. By speaking about the benefits of smaller government and limited executive power, he has introduced a generation of young Americans to a more traditional and true style of conservatism—to the movement and the country’s benefit.

That's how much Rudy Giuliani spent on his doomed presidential bid. For all of that money, Rudy received a total of ONE delegate to the GOP convention. I wonder where the $12 mil that's left over goes?

At least he's not John McCain, who, while the presumed front runner for the nomination, had at the end of the 4th quarter about $3 mil cash on hand. He probably has had a surge in funding with his recent primary victories, but there is no way that he's going to be able to compete with Mitt Romney as far as cash for advertising is concerned.

Even worse off is Mike Huckabee, the Iowa caucus winner reported just under $700k cash on hand for the end of the 4th quarter. He's done after Super Tuesday.

Mitt Romney has a personal fortune of around $250 million and has lent his campaign around $40 million of it to date. His 4th quarter donations from people other than himself totaled around $9 million. He ended up with around $2.5 million cash on hand.

The big winner in the money raising race for the 4th quarter? Ron Paul. His donations totaled nearly $20 million, with the balance sheet reading nearly $8 million cash on hand by the end of the 4th quarter. What's interesting is that despite the media blackout, the lack of speaking time at the debates, and his ability to attract his fair share of kooks, nuts, and geeks. His fundraising totals have grown each and every quarter.The FEC reports are here and a good write up from the LA times of last quarter is here.

Of course all of this pales in comparison to Barack Obama. In the month of January, he raised $32 million dollars.